


One in a Million

by andrastesgrace (RoxieFlash), gallifreyslostson



Series: Family Assembled [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxieFlash/pseuds/andrastesgrace, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyslostson/pseuds/gallifreyslostson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper attends her first big event as Tony’s significant other, and handles it in true Pepper fashion–by panicking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One in a Million

Virginia Potts, Pepper to her friends, was panicking.

Not an altogether  _new_  experience, granted.  When it came to marketable skills, constant anxiety was listed just under “organization and time management” and just above “ability to corral Tony Stark.”  The fact that Tony was usually the cause of her agitation was beside the point.  Sort of.

Not right now though.  Now, it was all him.  And not him at all.

He hadn’t even  _done_  anything.

Except ask her to be his date at a charity ball.  Which, alright, yes, they’d been…something for a while, ever since the Expo, so it made sense that he’d asked.  And he’d been so sweet lately, in a very…Tony way.  Which was usually dramatic and obnoxious, helicopter rides and skywriters and banners and balloons filling her office, but still mattered.  Right?

Right.

But then there were all these other women around, some of whom Pepper vividly remembered escorting out of Tony’s apartment in the mornings.  The rest weren’t hard to imagine being there.  Which wasn’t her job anymore, obviously, but it was somebody’s.  And it didn’t take a genius to realize that if she hadn’t come with Tony, he still probably wouldn’t have come alone.

Or, at least, wouldn’t have left alone.

Pepper stared into the mirror in the bathroom she’d fled to for another minute, then shook her head, putting her brush and lipstick back into her clutch.

“This is stupid,” she muttered to herself.  “Completely stupid.  You’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and it hasn’t tanked, you are just as good as anyone else here.  Just because some of them are blonder and prettier and know how to actually be at a charity ball and how to smile and walk and flirt without wanting to throw up doesn’t make them better than you.”

She looked up at the mirror again and groaned.  “It makes them a  _lot_ better.”

Well, either way, she couldn’t hide in here forever.  She took a deep breath, straightening her spine and squaring her shoulder.  She could do this.  She was Pepper Potts, dammit.  If she could keep Tony killing himself for the last few years, she could do anything.

Probably.

It was twisted fate that she found Tony talking to one of the glamorous women when she returned to the ballroom.  To his credit, he did a double-take when he saw Pepper, looking almost relieved as he slipped an arm around her waist.

“I was starting to think you’d abandoned me.” he said.

“Of course not,” she replied, smiling at the woman.  “Not without someone else to keep an eye on you anyway, you’d just end up in the newspapers in the morning and give me a headache.”

“Probably.  Like I was saying, Pepper’s really amazing at what she does.  Way overqualified to be my babysitter, she’s done amazing things with the company.”

“I’m…thrilled to hear it,” the woman said, with a tight smile that showed her to be anything but.  “If you’ll excuse me.”

Pepper watching the woman move away, then turned to Tony.  “You were talking about me?”

Tony sniffed, looking past her at the woman and raising an eyebrow.  “She expressed some…surprise that I’d invited my old assistant as my date.  I was just explaining that you’ve always been…much, much more than that.”

She stared at him a second, then turned toward the bar.  “I can’t do this.  I need a drink.  Or six.”

“Wait, what’s wrong, what’d I do?” Tony asked, following her.

“Nothing,” she snapped, feeling like an idiot, because he  _hadn’t_  done anything.  “I just…don’t belong here.”

“Of course you do,” he said, circling a hand around her arm and pulling her to a stop.  “You’re the CEO of Stark Industries, and as such, one of the largest contributors to this particular charity, so really, if anyone belongs here, it’s you.”

“As the CEO, maybe, but not as your  _date_!”

Tony’s jaw dropped open a little, and he shook his head a little as if to clear it.  He took her hands in his and stepped closer.  “Pepper, I adore your brain.  I love how organized it is, and all the twists and turns it can take, but honey, I am gonna need a little help following this one.”

Pepper shrugged a little, then sighed.  “What are we doing, Tony?”

“Suffering through social niceties in the name of philanthropy?”

She let out a disgusted noise and ripped her hands from his, turning for the bar again.

“Aw, Pepper, come on, help me out,” he complained, hot on her heels.  “What happened?”

“Nothing, I just–”  She spun around abruptly.  “What would you be doing if I wasn’t here?”

“Drinking a lot and probably saying the wrong thing to someone important,” he replied promptly.

“Probably,” she agreed.  “But then you’d still manage to charm someone into coming home with you, someone for your new assistant to escort out in the morning to never hear from you again.”

“I’m confused, are you asking what I would be doing if you weren’t here or if you’d suddenly gone into witness protection?”

“What?”

“Pepper, I’m with you whether you’re here or not.  I’m not sure, I haven’t had a lot of experience with it, but I’m told that’s how relationships work.”

“Okay but for how long?” she asked, figuring she’d already come this far.  Better to have it out in the open, cards on the table, whatever other metaphor applied.  “How long do you really think we’ll keep doing this before you get distracted by another pair of…legs?”

Tony’s brows shot up, and he glanced around the room before looking back at her.  “That’s what you’re worried about?  Okay, first of all, have you  _seen_  you?  Especially your legs, good god, they’re like sexy stilts, it’s amazing.”

“They are good legs,” she admitted, bending her knee through the slit in her dress and examining the revealed portion of thigh and calf critically.

“Very good, incredible,” he agreed, nodding.  “But second of all…sweetheart, there have been…women in my life that were…events.  Some more memorable, some lasting longer, there was really a lot–”

“I’m sorry, is this supposed to be making me feel  _better_?”

“Okay, point taken, but the point is…Pepper, they were events.  It always ended, it was over, and everyone moved on.  But you…”  He stepped close again, reaching out to brush a stray hair from her face and smiling a little.  “You were there through all of them, you’re not an event.  You, Miss Pepper Potts, are a lifetime achievement.  A one in a million shot that I’d be stupid to pass up or let go.”

“Lifetime achievement?” she asked as his thumb moved over her cheek in a light caress.

“Yeah.”

“That almost sounds like you’re saying you–”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” she managed, feeling a little breathless.  She watched, eyes wide, as he leaned in, but let her lids flutter closed when he kissed her gently.

She was never going to be one of the girls he usually gravitated to–she was too uptight, too high-strung, too… _her_.  And she was okay with that.  But it was nice to know he was okay with it too.  More than okay with it.

She was a lifetime achievement.

She was embarrassed by the moan that escaped her when he angled his head and deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding along hers, but judging by the hand slipping over her waist to pull her closer, he was okay with  _that_  too.

“So, um, about that whole…charming someone into coming home with me,” he said some indeterminate time later, his voice a little rough.  “That…is sounding very me right now.  And like something I would do…sometime…around now.”

Pepper sucked in a breath as his lips moved to her neck, glancing around in alarm.  “There’s…um…people.  The ball–”

“They’ll live,” he said, and she bit back another groan when his teeth scraped over her ear.  “And they’ll still get their check.  I have…a lot of faith in my CEO.”

“That’s…that’s good,” she stammered out, one hand clutching his shoulder.  “Sound…business planning.”

“I thought so.  Pepper, come home with me.  It’s either that or I go hunting down a closet.”

Later, after the limo and crashing through the front door in his arms and onto the couch because his room was all the way across the apartment, she was lying against his chest and feeling…much less agitated.  Incredibly calm and boneless, as a matter of fact.  One of his hands was on her arm, his thumb moving back and forth absently over her skin, while the other combed through her hair soothingly.  She traced a finger over metal frame around the glowing circle on his chest, the piece of technology keeping him alive and in her world despite the shrapnel that was constantly trying to steal him away.

“You know…I think you…might be my lifetime achievement too.”

Tony snorted, his hand squeezing her arm.  “Wow, you aimed low.”

“Well, besides being a top executive of a Fortune 500.”

“Oh, well, yeah, obviously.”

“And anyway, no one gets to insult my boyfriend,” she said, lifting her head to look at him.  “Not even him.”

He winced, clicking his tongue.  “While I appreciate the sentiment…can’t we do better than boyfriend?”

“Well I could call you my idiot.”

“That’s just not true. I have proof. In my chest.”

Pepper gave him a look.

“It glows in the dark!”

Pepper maintained the look.

Tony sighed. “All right, it’s factual, I’ll give you that, but–”

“Well what do you want me to call you, then?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Man-friend?”

“That makes you sound like a gigolo.  Or booty call.”

“Okay, anyone over forty should not be referred to as a boyfriend, I’m sorry, I don’t write the rules.”  He sighed, raising a hand to her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.  “Yours,” he said finally, and the word did strange things in her heart, making her feel warm and secure, basically the opposite of how she’d felt in that stupid bathroom.  “That’s it, yours. Property of Pepper Potts - we’ll get it tattooed right on my–”

“Tony!”


End file.
